Young children are waiting for early learning and child care in Atlantic Canada and across the rest of the country.
This matters. As children wait, their early learning is stifled, their parents are unable to work, with the economy foregoing needed skills, now and in the future. Instead, we can make early learning and child care quickly available and add spaces to serve a province’s preschool population.
A significant part of the solution resides in our schools by offering universal Junior Kindergarten for 4-year-olds as an extension of public education. It is accessible in the neighborhood school, free of charge, and linked with existing resources and infrastructure. Existing school-based “before and after-school” programs help to accommodate parents’ work schedules while offering stability for the children.
